Good thing they handed out this checklist, or I would have forgotten to wear socks!

From the notes I scrawled:

1. When the career services guy said, "the job market is improving," people clapped. Uh, everyone who wanted a job last year got one. How much can this really improve from that baseline? And why are we clapping?

2. Firms are increasing revenue, but also increasing billable hours requirements. Nobody clapped. I have done enough research to know that "increased bilable hours requirements" is just a fancy way of saying "no weekends, buddy."

3. Summer perks are being reduced. That's a fancy way of saying we're going to be buying our own lunch.

4. "I know you have the handout, and I know you can read it, but --" is never a fun way to start a sentence.

5. He said Harvard charges these firms "a lot of money" to come here and recruit. "And I'll tell you how much." $700. I was expecting a much, much bigger number. Although with 600-odd firms, that adds up. But still. That's like pocket change, kind of. Of course, he did say that a lot of the cost is in lawyer time for interviewing and renting a room at the Hotel, and all that stuff, so I'm sure it does add up to quite a bit. But the $700 entrance fee seems not so bad for these gazillion-dollar firms.

6. Non-discrimination policy: "any kind of discrimination is unacceptable." What about discrimination based on interviewing skills?

7. Referring to a page on the website: "this page here is a subset of what you saw on the front page." Thanks.

8. We have a bid limit of 35 firms, but we can add up to 5 firms a week to our list during the "add/drop period." There are 3 weeks. So we can theoretically have up to 50 interviews in 3 weeks. That's a lot of interviews.

9. "I don't want to say that it's a utopia but last year's numbers speak for themselves." Good thing the market's improving, eh?

10. "You don't want to be dating someone just because they have a pulse." I thought this was interviewing advice, not dating advice. Actually, though, I could use some of both.

11. 52 minutes into the presentation -- "we will keep this short." Excellent.